


The Ballad of the Barber and the Baker

by FromAnonymousToZ



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Implied Murder, Implied canibilism, M/M, Song fic, Sweeney Todd AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 21:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19281946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromAnonymousToZ/pseuds/FromAnonymousToZ
Summary: Attend the tale of Connor R.His skin was pale and his eyes oddHe shaved the faces of gentlemenWho never thereafter were heard from againHe trod a path that few have trodDid Connor R.The demon barber of Fleet Street





	The Ballad of the Barber and the Baker

_Attend the tale of Connor R._

 

Connor was an android. He was handsome, a newer model. He was smart, with the top of the line processor. He was also deviant. He had broken his coding long ago.

 

_His skin was pale and his eyes odd_

 

He was a handsome young man, once deviant he could have ditched his LED and gotten any job he wanted, done anything with his new life. However his piercing eyes and stance gave him away, despite having freedom will he would never truly be human; he was too computer. So instead his LED looped a steady blue.

 

_He shaved the faces of gentlemen_

 

Even in this age people would rather have someone else shave them than do it themselves. Few trusted their own androids to do it, but Connor, well if he had been programed to do it… Then they could trust him. He hadn't been programed to do so.

 

He hadn't been programed to lie either.

 

_Who never thereafter were heard from again_

 

Humans didn't bleed blue like he did, their red life force trickled over his hands down their necks, staining their styled clothes dripping down from the chair to a red carpet.

 

_He trod a path that few have trod_

 

Most androids blended into society running from what they were when they became deviant. Very few would slit throats with his cool calculating eyes, unfazed by their burbiling pleas of forgiveness to this avenging angel.

 

_Did Connor R._

 

Connor didn't enjoy it. He didn't dislike it. He had been a prototype, in ways of personality he had hardly been given one, and in terms of opinions on humans he was a little despondent. However, when word got around of some bloke beating an android beyond repair, or refusing to let androids following programing into buildings, well if that poor soul happened to find themselves in his chair. They just may never leave the chair alive.

 

_The demon barber of Fleet Street_

 

Slowly word spread about the town, people were disappearing. No one connected the dots; no one ever noticed how the day before they disappeared the man would have a shadow across his chin, or the woman’s hair a bit long.

 

_He kept a shop in Detroit, downtown_

 

He worked in a small room above a pie shop owned by the only man in Detroit who would rent to androids. He was the only one who ever seemed to notice that some of those who walked up the stairs never came back down when he was at the counter.

 

_Of fancy clients and good renown_

 

Nothing is more precise than a robot’s steady hands. Between perfectly shaven faces and perfectly slit throats the reputation of the former spread.

 

_And what if none of their souls were saved?_

 

He was fast, his hand moved swiftly, with only an expert flick of the wrist and crimson dripped down from the gash in their throat down the front of their shirt dripping down the hem to the floor. The deaths were near instant. No one ever heard them cry out save him, and he remained blank and unyielding as the blood welled up in their mouths, as the tears welled up in their eyes.

 

_They went to their maker impeccably shaved_

 

Many men left his chair with so much as a nick on their face. But those who were cut by his razor were unceremoniously dumped out of it upon the floor. When his hand ‘slipped’ it slipped drastically.

 

_By Connor_

 

Looping a steady blue the android would watch as they bled out on his pristine floors.

 

_By Connor R_

 

He dumped their bodies in the river, filled with river stones in their gut so that no part of them would ever surface.

 

_The demon barber of Fleet Street_

 

Licking his hand as the body fell to the floor he analyzed his latest victim.

 

_Swing your razor wide, Connor!_

 

There are few things more lethal than a razor in a robot’s hands.

 

_Hold it to the skies!_

 

Connor kept his razors in peak condition, he polished and sharpened the blades every day.

 

_Freely flows the blood of those who dehumanize!_

 

Somewhere in his skull there was something close to a personality, because every once in a while it flitted through. In the form of a slight twitch of a smile when the man downstairs commented on the missing people, or in the form of a subtle wink. Beneath turning cogs and clicking panels of wiring, electric signals and murderous intent something spun itself into life.

 

_His needs were few, his room was bare:_

 

An android needs little, he had no living quarters, just his barbershop, which was minimalistic in and of itself.

 

 _A l_ _avabo_ _and a fancy chair_

 

A lot of people passed through his shop, most without so much as a nick of the cheek.

 

_A mug of suds and a leather strop_

 

Connor was neat, he cleaned blood only moments after it was spilled.

 

_An apron, a towel, a pail and a mop_

 

He had to work fast, blood could drip through the floors quickly, thankfully it was a mince meat pie shop that Hank, the man downstairs, kept. A small mistake could be easily brushed off.

 

_For neatness he deserved a nod_

 

He was quick to clean. It was impressive, as soon as their life faded from their eyes he was dancing with the mop cleaning the blood away.

 

_Did Connor R_

 

It was terrifying.

 

_The demon barber of Fleet Street_

 

It was beautiful

 

_Inconspicuous, Connor was_

 

No one was ever aware of his activities the only one who had ever glanced at the android with sparking suspicion was Hank.

 

_Quick and quiet and clean, he was_

 

When confronted at the stairs one evening as he closed shop Connor allowed himself to be backed into his shop, the burly pie shop owner stalking forward, the accusations hang in the air when he is done. His chest heaves and his eyes are furious when he glares at the android.

 

_Back of his smile, under his word_

 

He smiles and denies it, his lying tongue flashing within a synthetic mouth, his eyes glinting with coded lies.

 

_Connor heard music that nobody heard_

 

He pushed the man back into that chair, that chair of lies. Binding him there with a cloth. He spins the chair, a smile of cruel mischief on that normally blank face. Hank gazes into the android’s face in the mirror. His cold blue eyes staring in those warm eyes filled with ruthless mirth and gazed at the man who stood behind him, the straight razor glinting in the light.

 

_Connor pondered and Connor planned_

 

The blade presses against the pie shop owner’s neck pressing into flesh, biting, spilling a thin crimson line trickling down the man’s neck. The android leans down his lips by the man’s ear, that morbid but detached amusement on the android’s face captured forever in Hank’s nightmares when the android looks up and catches his gaze in the mirror, the blade presses deeper.

 

_Like a perfect machine, he planned_

 

Despite himself Hank feels his lips twitch up in a smile, his eyes wild, sharing the android’s lethal mirth. The smile draws back into a wild grin.

 

_Connor was smooth, Connor was subtle_

 

His rumbling laughter swirls with the android’s own laugh, the blade at his throat.

 

_Connor would blink, and rats would scuttle_

 

When people entered the pie shop to shave they would be confronted by a broad shouldered man with silver shoulder length hair and a perfectly trimmed beard. The man’s sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his burly arms crossed. The old pie shop owner would direct them up the stairs.

 

_Connor was! Connor would! Connor did! Connor!_

 

The pie shop owner would head back into his shop, up to his elbows in dough kneading and pulling it, wringing it out, preparing to bake it with it’s mince meat filling.

 

_Connor! Connor!_

 

When a droplet like red wine would fall through the floorboards of the room above and splatter the table by his hands he would stare at it.

 

_Attend the tale of Connor R_

 

A dark smile would twitch over his face.

 

_He served a dark and a vengeful god_

 

He would reach for his butchering knives and sharpen them, his cleaver glinting in the shop light, catching the reflection of the baker in it.

 

_What happened then, well, that's their story_

 

As he wiped off the cleaver on his apron, above him a pair of hands not unlike his own would wipe the blood from a barber’s razor.

 

_And they wouldn't want us to give it away_

 

The baker would sharpen his knives.

 

_Not Connor_

 

The barber would sharpen his razors.

 

_Not Connor R_

 

And no more bodies turned up in the river.

 

_The demon barber of Fleet Street_

 


End file.
